Kowai Downs

Successful sheep and beef farmer Nelson Hancox was a recent participant in the Rabobank Global Farmers Masterclass held in Australia in late 2014. For Nelson, the experience of rubbing shoulders with primary producers from all over the globe has reinforced the importance of controlling the value chain in order to make viable returns. 

Nelson and his wife Fiona have a long-term vision to carry on sheep and beef farming in the face of increasing demand for land from dairy farming. Since starting out in 1984, have expanded their business to run three farms – the home farm Kowai Downs at Tapanui, Wohelo at Moa Flat, and Mt Allen at Parkhill, Heriot. They produce 30,000 lambs a year. They’re multi award winners – they were Lincoln Foundation Rabobank Farmers of the Year; in 2005 their second farm Wohelo was a monitor farm and in 2010 the won NZ Ewe Hogget Competition.

Part of the driver for their enthusiasm for farming sheep comes from going on a tour to the UK and Europe in 2005, which was part of their Lincoln Foundation Rabobank prize package.

Nelson was interested to talk to others at the Masterclass about succession planning. He now feels enthusiastic about trying grow the business and develop opportunities for his family inside the business they have. 

Their sheep objectives are to have an easy care, reasonably non-shepherded ewe flock lambing itself with low labour. “I keep the systems very simple really,” says Nelson.

They don’t make any hay, baleage or silage, and their ewes eat either grass or brassica crops. In a spring like 2014 that has been a challenge. Nelson says after a mild winter they struggled to find feed for their stock.

Altogether across the three farms they mate 20,000 ewes and 2400 of the 5700 hoggets are also mated. Scanning levels are around 170-182% and lambing ranges from 138-153%, excluding hogget lambs.

Running the farms separately enables the strengths and weaknesses of each farm to be identified, and a close eye kept on achievements. The 530ha home farm Kowai Downs is generally summer safe and reasonably frost free, with improved pasture growth in winter.

The small component of cattle on each farm is to keep the pastures in order and to have a bit of slack in the system to allow destocking if necessary.

All their stock is supplied to Silver Fern Farms. “We have been shareholders with them since purchasing our first properties and have enjoyed being part of the plate to pasture strategy,” says Nelson.

Nelson was among five leading New Zealand farmers selected to participate in the Rabobank Global Farmers’ Masterclass, which took place in November 2015. The week-long Master Class was held for 40 progressive farmers from across the globe, who gathered to share ideas and information on the future of farming and participate in the educational programme.

Nelson says that after coming back from the Masterclass and hearing from people involved in all kinds of industries it’s clear that those that are involved in the value chain receive a far better return than those that are not.

Scale, size and collaboration are things that Nelson has come away from the course quite fired up about. He says he and Fiona are keen to make a difference within their sector and with the MIE (Meat Industry Excellence) Group. “We need to grow and combine the cooperatives and push for greater scale. There’s duplication across the farmer owned cooperatives and the sooner we can pull them together, the better.”

He says R&D is being duplicated by the companies and the sooner there’s a rationalisation in that sector with right people in the right markets, the less people there will be knocking on doors.

Fiona was recently part of the Agri-Women’s Development Trust’s Escalator governance and leadership course. She says one of the impacts of the course was a desire to stand up and be counted on issues that she’s passionate about in the sectors that affect their businesses. She says restructuring and consolidation of the industry is needed and the only way to start that is through co-operatives, and other players needed to be encouraged to join, she said.

Fiona is an executive member of Meat Industry Excellence which has been seeking industry reform. She is also a farmer representative on the Beef+Lamb New Zealand Southern South Island Farmer Council.  She thinks processors and farmers need to work together to maximize returns. ”It’s going to have to be a better team effort, with two-way communication so both businesses are profitable,” she said. “That would then mean processors could invest in their businesses and farmers could do the same with theirs.” The first step is the upcoming co-operative director elections. “People are needed around the board table who will promote those discussions,” she said. Fiona is standing for the board of SFF in the February 2015 elections.